


Penumbra

by ArmaniWorks



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmaniWorks/pseuds/ArmaniWorks
Summary: Haiku explains how light and darkness go hand-in-hand





	Penumbra

“Un moment s'il vous plaît, Lincoln Loud” A voice like fine silk stopped Lincoln dead in his tracks, the boy turning around to look at the gothic girl slowly approaching him. A small voice in the back of his mind told him that waiting for this girl was a bad decision, yet he kept a civil nature as the dark-haired beauty stopped at his side, small notebooks held tight against her chest. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Lincoln?” Her voice kept to the same soft monotone that he was used to hearing from his sister, yet experience in dealing with Lucy had given the boy an ample amount of knowledge in certain ‘tells’, Haiku’s voice having an ‘eagerness’ laced along the edges.

“Y-yeah, I mean… It’s been a week since the Sadie Hawkins, right?” Lincoln rubbed at the back of his neck, an awkward smile gracing his lips as he made his way towards the front entrance of the school. Keeping to a light pace, he was surprised at how easily Haiku seemed to keep up with him, the tight wine-red dress doing nothing to hinder her movement in the least. “So, what did you want?”

“I was hoping that I might be able to talk to you about something.” The pale beauty gazed at him from the corner of her eye. “Would you mind following me, please?”

“Why, can’t we talk here?” Lincoln stopped to look around, the hallway completely empty as most of the school had already cleared out after the last bell had gone off.

“I’d like to go someplace a bit more… comfortable.” Haiku pointed upwards and for a moment, Lincoln was completely confused until came to the slow realization that the goth was pointing towards the fluorescent lights lining the ceiling. “I find all this light far too… hindering, wouldn’t you agree?” His body shivered at her words, watching the odd girl casually taking the lead towards the gymnasium.

“I should just head straight home.” Lincoln muttered under his breath, head moving back and forth towards both the open gym doors and the exit not four feet away from him. “I could just walk right out that door and no one in the world would blame me for it.” He bit his lip as a mental debate carried on in his mind, a moment seeming like an eternity before finally turning on his heel to follow down the darkened path left open. “I  **really**  hope I don’t end up regretting this!”

* * *

The gym itself was already a place of torment and terror for the Loud, his lack of energy towards anything related to sports easily reason to blame, yet now the building was an absolute nightmare. The overhead lights had been shut off for the day, the only other source of light coming from the open windows. The sun already starting to set for the day, small pools of marigold littering the hardwood paneling. Placing her meager schoolwork aside on the floor, Haiku stepped into one of the puddles near the center of the area, unable to keep from wincing as she stood within the plashet, luminescence showing off her soft pale skin and curves underneath the wine-red dress. As much as Lincoln didn’t want to admit it, the raven-haired vixen was captivating, though he wouldn’t dare admit that. Especially not to himself.

“Yes, this is much better, wouldn’t you agree?” Haiku lamented, a hand on her body as she squirmed from the increase in warmth she received. “A nice, large  **dark**  atmosphere amongst all this brightness. I couldn’t ask for a better setting, wouldn’t you agree?”

Lincoln’s hand gripped tighter at the strap around his shoulder, keeping close to the doorway for a moment before tossing the backpack to the side of the doorway, moving inside and slowly approaching one of the other pools of fading sunshine. “R-really? I’m surprised you chose the gym. He looked up towards the beauty, freezing in place as he noticed that he had inadvertently stood within her shadow, feeling a chill crawl down his spine. For as much as the boy wanted to move and free himself from her dark hold, Lincoln simply couldn’t find it in himself to take a single step to the side. “I would’ve thought you’d have chosen something more… soul-crushing? Like a broom closet or the cafeteria…” Immediately, the boy clapped a hand over his mouth, regretting ever opening his trap as the goth turned around to look at him.

“Are you surprised by my choice of environment?” She gave a light chuckle. “I suppose that makes some sense. You wouldn’t believe it by simply looking at me, but as a creature of the night, I have a vast appreciation of the light.”

“You’re serious?”

Haiku nodded, her face still kept at a steady neutral as she brought her hand back towards her body, absentmindedly wiping her hand along her front to clean it of the contaminant. “I’m always serious, Lincoln. You cannot have darkness in this world without light, which is why I have taken such an interest in you. ”

The boy tilted his head, confusion etched upon his brow as he watched the girl slowly making her way along towards the edges of her luminescent prison. “I-uhh… thanks? I don’t know how to feel about that, though.”

“You should feel proud of yourself.” Haiku’s eyes glimmered and the sense of warning that had finally settled from before began to go off in the back of Lincoln’s mind once more. “It’s not often that I take such interest in other people, especially those with such an association to the light as you.”

Lincoln extended a hand outwards, body language screaming confusion. “Okay, you keep saying that, but I have absolutely no clue what the heck you’re talking about.”

There was a slight tilting of her head, Haiku’s neutral expression changing for the first time, her eyebrow lifting slightly to show just how puzzled she truly was before her lips twisted to show a hint of mirth. “You must be joking. Surely, your sister has told you by now, hasn’t she?” There was a slight shake of his head as Haiku nodded in response. “Your heart, your soul, your hair itself… everything about you has an aura of light to it.” Her hands came to stop at the very edge as if there was a wall between them. “You’re a sweet soul, Lincoln Loud.”

“Ye~ah, well I-”

“A sweet soul that I want to consume within my darkness.”

The boy blinked, frozen in place as he watched the goth girl step out of the light and disappear within the black. “Ohhh boy, what the heck?” His head twisted from side-to-side, fear clutching at his breast as he searched for her presence. “ **Please**  tell me you mean that in a nice, normal way?” Free of the captivity of her shade, he was able to move about the bright square, fear still keeping him prisoner within the barrier

Her voice rang out from all around, practically one with the environment. “I mean it in the way that I said it, Lincoln. I want to enjoy you, everything about you. Doesn’t that sound ‘nice and normal’?”

“Oh yeah, perfectly normal.” The words came out in a condescending tone, rolling his eyes at the void around him. Lincoln jumped in-place as he felt something touch at his backside, arching forward as Haiku’s nails came to graze over the small between his shoulder blades. “T-this isn’t funny, Haiku!” Lincoln whipped around, seeing the tips of her magenta fingernails creeping back into the darkness. “Asking me out is kind-of pointless, I already have a girlfriend, you know.”

“If I were asking you out, I would have done so already.” She gave a light chuckle and Lincoln could practically feel her smirking in the shade. “No, what I want from you is more than what can be offered by a mere title.”

He turned to the side, expecting to see the goth looking at him from the corner of his eye, only to have Haiku’s gloved hand teasing Lincoln’s shoulders from right-to-left. There was a giggle from the shadows, Lincoln turning towards the emptiness in protest. “Would you stop doing that!?”

“No.” The bemusement in her voice gave him reason for his mood to sour, face twisting into what his sisters had dubbed ‘Linc’s expression’.

“Then what do you want from me?”

Lincoln’s heart stopped in place, Haiku’s arms coming around his neck as she pulled herself underneath the glow. “I want exactly what I said. Everything you have to offer and so much more. I wish to consume you whole.” Her body was cold, yet Lincoln couldn’t bring himself to push her away, finding the feel and scent of her skin upon his body captivating. “Is that so strange a thing to say to someone you find interesting?”

“Maybe just a little bit?”

He could feel her lips press into his bare neck, the vibrations of her laughter causing Lincoln to lose his breath, yet the room stayed still. “I have no problem with that, I know how comfortable you are with strange things, after all.”

“Haiku… please, I-”

“Don’t fight it, Lincoln.” She pulled tighter, strangling the words in his throat. “I know you can feel what I’m feeling right now, how you want this as much as I do.”

“Yo-you’re wrong, Haiku.”

“And you’re a terrible liar, have your sisters ever told you that?”

“Not once.”

She smiled into his flesh, the feeling coming off as confusing and intriguing at the same time, before the expression faded back into her usual neutrality.  “It won’t be so bad, Lincoln. I promise you will enjoy every minute of it. You don’t need to be afraid of my darkness.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark.”  
  
“No, no you wouldn’t be, would you?” She began to pull backward, Lincoln’s unresisting body being dragged towards the diminishing borderline. “But trust me, when I say that I am nothing like your sister.” Lincoln was turned around, brought to face the mysterious allure of the girl’s eyes and finding them completely bewitching. Intoxicating. Consuming. “There won’t be any coming back from my embrace… I promise, though, that you’ll enjoy every minute of it.”

His mouth opened, voice lost to the void as Haiku hushed the boy, an almost tender tone to her. “No more words, Lincoln. We’ve said everything that needs to be said. Now is the time for action. Now is the time for us.”

“… please, I…”  The snow-capped youth was little more than a puppet being pulled on strings, limply being led into the oblivion.

“Détendez-vous, mon amant, ma lumière.” Her french accent sent thrills down Lincoln’s spine as her lips began to close in upon his own. “No more talk, no more words… I will have you, here and now and forever after. Allow me to have you, Lincoln Loud, allow me to partake of your light.” Haiku’s body clipped into the black, her face encompassing Lincoln’s vision, the smell of lavender and incense clouding his mind further. “Let me lead you into everlasting darkness…”

For a moment, Lincoln hung on the edge of oblivion, completely ensorcelled by the vampiric youth’s very persona. All he wanted was for her to come a centimeter forward to press her boysenberry lips into his, yet she kept herself at that tantalizing distance away, eager to let the boy take the plunge into the abyss. Something kept him from indulging her, a voice in the back of Lincoln’s mind that remained to tether him and as his eyes closed, a flash of tanned skin and the memory of a kiss atop a pedestal brought him back to reality. Eyes snapping back open, Lincoln pulled himself away from Haiku’s seductive pull, clumsily backing into the center of the light.

“ **Girlfriend!**  Friend, yes, I have a girlfriend and I-!” He stammered, eyes locked onto Haiku’s bewildered expression as he struggled to find words. “I have a girlfriend and we can’t be-we can be friends just not… like, you know…”

Her gaze was piercing, captivating still, taking a good amount of Lincoln’s still-diminished willpower to resist as he kept from making eye-contact. For a moment, he thought that she might voice displeasure at his rejection of her ‘offer’, only for the girl’s lips to curl as she began to give off a soft chuckle. “I knew that there was something special about you, Lincoln Loud. I wasn’t wrong about you in the least.” Her arms came to wrap around her waist and the boy believed that if anything, he had played further into her hands. “You can keep your light to yourself, for now. Share it with whomever it is you keep close to your heart… I’ve nothing to hold against you.”  
  
“Erm… thanks?”

“Just remember that this does not end here.” Lincoln shivered as he watched her take a step backward. “Light and darkness go hand-in-hand, after all. Eventually, you’ll find yourself all alone with your light and I’ll be there in the shadow you cast, ready to be everything you would want and need and more. Jusqu'à ce que nous nous rencontrions, Lincoln Loud.” She faded out of existence, leaving the Loud to his quagmire and he shivered at how easily the girl took to the shade.

“Ye~ah, I’m not going to sleep tonight after that.”


End file.
